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Thursday, 14 February 2013

From
the clothes we wear to the fabrics we use around the home, textiles say
something about the way we see ourselves and the stories we want to tell.

The
‘Imperfect’ Firescreen by Deborah Wynne

A few years ago I bought this
firescreen from a junk shop, a simple wooden structure with a glass front which
protects a tapestry. As soon as I noticed the stitched design, I felt intrigued
about its creator and wondered what story lay behind its creation. It obviously
was not made in a factory; its imperfections testify to that. Yet the
imperfections of its design are what make this object fascinating to me and I
often find myself wondering about the story behind this intriguing object.

The stitched design is based on the
image of two deer at rest in a moorland landscape; however, between each of the
animals rises an enormous vase of flowers which appears to float in the sky
above them. An odd combination indeed! Some of the flowers in the vase are
incomplete, the ones at the top left and top right of the firescreen do not
even have stems and seem to float strangely above the rest, like comets in the
sky. Clearly, the needleworker was uncertain about which design to produce, but
instead of unpicking one before starting on the other, the vase and the
landscape seem to compete for the same space. Why?

Many, many questions have been
prompted by this object, especially in the summer when, as it conceals my empty
fireplace, the firecreen takes centre-stage in my living room. Is the design
unfinished because the stitcher ran out of thread and simply couldn’t be
bothered to complete the project properly? I think that a more likely
explanation is that something happened to prevent this needleworker completing
the design. Did a loved one preserve the textile as a relic of a deceased
relative, spouse, or friend, and was unable to bear altering their last piece
of needlework? Why has this stitched fabric been so carefully preserved within
an ornamental firescreen when its design is so confused and the piece
unfinished? Was it once on display in a sitting room as a fond reminder of
someone who liked needlework? How did the firescreen end up in the junk shop?
Is the needleworker now forgotten? Was the person who had preserved this relic
now dead?

I often wonder who took the trouble
to preserve an unfinished piece of work (some might call it ‘flawed’), as the
central design of a firescreen. The confused and unfinished design spoke
volumes to me, largely because I can identify with someone who can’t make up
their mind about what to create: I am currently knitting a cardigan and can’t
decide on the front panel, I am wavering between a V-neck and a
button-up-to-the-neck design. This vacillation from one plan to another has often
led to the creation of many oddly-shaped garments in the past. The creator’s
indecision, captured in the contradictory design of the firescreen, is a
mystery, making this object unique, very far removed from the ‘perfection’ of machine-made,
mass-produced items.

I discussed the ways in which
textiles convey stories in my recent book, Women
and Personal Property in the Victorian Novel (Ashgate, 2010). Below is an
excerpt discussing Dickens’s Bleak House,
and his depiction of Esther Summerson’s handkerchief. This is seen as valuable
by many of the novel’s female characters, because Esther has embroidered it
herself, with her own name: